


bleed and fight for you (make it right for you)

by visiblemarket



Series: Foundations [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Shattered Empire
Genre: As you do, F/M, and a late in the game cameo by bb!poe, bein' cool, doin' stuff, space latinxs, typical dramatic pregnancy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/pseuds/visiblemarket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Can you walk?”</i><br/> <br/><i>“Yes,” he says, automatically; she gives him the classic <i>Kes Dameron, You Are A Fool</i> look, but follows it with the </i>(But You’re My Fool)<i> smile, so it’s not so bad. “Maybe,” he corrects.</i></p><p>  <i>“Okay, we’re about five—“</i></p><p>  <i>The bright beam of a cannon fire arcs over their head, and Shara ducks over him, covering his chest with her body; her stomach rests on his hip, and he reaches over to press his hand against her side. Not sure what he’s searching for, but feels it, a swift, steady jolting kick.</i></p><p>  <i>“They’re fine,” Shara says into his ear, softly, or as softly as can be done over the sound of approaching war machines. “Kicking away, as usual."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	bleed and fight for you (make it right for you)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: 
> 
>  
> 
> [I just want to see pregnant Shara kicking ass and taking names. Bonus points if Kes is somehow incapacitated and it's all up to Shara to save the day. For a time frame, this would probably take place sometime between "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back." ](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=5955211#cmt5955211)
> 
>  
> 
>  But then it got away from me, so now there's that, but also, other stuff.

He wakes to a pounding headache and the dual cacophony of blaster fire and very familiar muttered cursing. Behind it, a low, drawn-out sound, like something heavy’s being dragged over rough terrain. Oh wait, he thinks, as his ear catches against the grit: that’s him.

He turns his head, opens his eyes. The sight of Shara Bey’s breasts and belly straining against her green flight suit is as welcome as ever, though slightly out of context here.

“Babe?” he ventures, and is immediately met with a relieved sigh.

“Oh, thank _fuck_ you’re awake,” she says, and gently lets him drop to the ground. They're behind a not-that-stable-looking stony outcropping which is nonetheless the best cover he can see from his admittedly not stellar vantage point of "on the ground, in the middle of a mild sandstorm".

“Because you’re so glad to see me, or because you’re tired of draggin’ me?"

Shara gives him an unconcerned shrug and a quick grin. “Oh, bit from column A, bit from column B, you know.” She’s breathless (from having to drag his fat ass, probably), her curls are coming free, and her eyes are shining brighter than the stars he can’t even see right now. He wants to kiss her more than he wants anything in the universe, up to and including everlasting intergalactic peace and serenity. “Can you walk?”

“Yes,” he says, automatically; she gives him the classic _Kes Dameron, You Are A Fool_ look, but follows it with the _(But You’re My Fool)_ smile, so it’s not so bad. “Maybe,” he corrects.

“Okay, we’re about five—“

The bright beam of a cannon fire arcs over their head, and Shara ducks over him, covering his chest with her body; her stomach rests on his hip, and he reaches over to press his hand against her side. Not sure what he’s searching for, but feels it, a swift, steady jolting kick.

“They’re fine,” Shara says into his ear, softly, or as softly as can be done over the sound of approaching war machines. “Kicking away, as usual."

“Oh yeah?” he says, grimacing as sharp bursts of pain begin radiating from his left leg. He hopes it’s rising awareness of a previously existing injury and not something new, not something that’ll make him even more useless to Shara right now. “Our little limmie player’s ready to take the field, huh?"

“They better not be, our little limmie player’s got three weeks before they’re _ready_ to take the field,” she says, rising to peak over their make-shift shelter. She must not like what she sees. “Gonna need to borrow your blaster, babe."

“What’s mine’s yours, Shara Bey,” he says, handing it over. “Gotta be careful, it pulls a little to left."

“Wouldn’t be yours if it didn’t pull a _little_ to the left, Kes,” she says, and winks down at him.

“Not in front of the kid, Lieutenant!" He says, mock-scandalized; she snorts and takes aim.

He leaves her to it, forcing himself into a basically seated position against the outcropping, listening to her fire shot after shot as the ground shakes with the approach.

"Damn it," she hisses, ducking back behind the outcropping. "Can't breach the shield at this distance. What else've you got?"

He's already taken a mental inventory and the answer is, not much: he'd used his grenades back at the start of this clusterfuck and the rocket launcher's back on the ship. This'd been strictly a recon mission, more to get Shara, who'd been going nuts on Hoth, off base than anything. They weren't actually supposed to find anything on this piece of shit planet in the ass-end of space.

"Kes?"

"Yeah," he says, giving himself a quick patdown and wincing as his hand grazes a thus-unnoticed wound to his side. Over the radiating fire coming from right above his left knee, it's not much to worry about. "Got a knife in my boot, if you wanna try to stab them to death—"

"Let's make that Plan C."

"Then I got nothing, 'xcept a spare blaster cartridge—“

She turns to him; their eyes meet, that quick, flashing current of understanding crackling between them. He hands the cartridge over to her.

“You ever build one of those before?"

“I understand the theory,” she says, which means she hasn't, but he’s not about to call her out on it. Not like he has, either, and she's always been better with tech.

Still: “Don't forget to strip the—"

“Less passenger-bay piloting, sweetheart," she says, tightly, and he shuts up. “Need something to bind this thing together, you got any—"

“Turn around,” he says, and she does, keeps fiddling with the exposed wires on the charger. He plucks out the band keeping her hair up, and hands it to her. “Perfect,” she says, over her shoulder, and gets to tying the newly unstable cartridge to the blaster. Kes, meanwhile, does his best to pull her hair back, weaving it into the simplest Alderiaan braid he knows; he used to help some of the kids at the orphanage with their hair in the mornings, and manages to shepherd Shara’s curls into a dark, tidy line down the back of neck almost on muscle memory alone.

He and Shara finish at about the same time. He expects her to rise, lob the make-shift explosive at the rapidly approaching Imperial Walker immediately, but she turns to him instead, grabs him by the collar, and kisses him.

“For luck,” she says, and leaps up, winding her arm back to get as much distance on the throw as possible. She stays standing, apparently watching their last chance of survival arc through the air, until Kes, who's seen the blast radius of one of those things, tugs her down.

Not a second too soon, because there's a dull metallic clang, somewhat muffled by the distance and the sand-choked air, followed almost instantly by a short, echoing boom, and then the air above them bursts into flames.

And then, silence.

The air around them has cleared, leaving the sight of a slowly setting sun. Shara's breaths are sharp but steady against his neck, for a moment, before she eases her way off. Clutching her side, and panic, perhaps slightly overdue, rises in Kes like bile in the back of his throat.

"You okay, Shara Bey?" he manages, voice catching on her name; Shara's peering over their shelter, and doesn't even seem to notice.

"Must've pulled something, I—"

The low, agonized groan of creaking durasteel cuts through the air, and she stumbles back.

He lunges without thought for his useless leg, and finds it crumpling beneath him. Manages to grab at the crumbling stone lip of their shelter, and through the throbbing agony, gets a decent enough view of the scorched Walker slowly tipping forward like some sort of wounded animal, before crashing ignominiously to the earth all at once.

He looks over at Shara; Shara looks over at him.

“Fuck,” they say, in unison, and then Shara grins, and he breaks into hoarse, almost hysterical laughter.

*

It’s a long, unsteady walk back to the ship, made worse by fact that they look like an entrant into a particularly fucked up three-legged-race. By the time they reach the shuttle, he’s practically ready to cut off his leg, for all the good it’s doing him, and Shara’s got that pinched, distant look she gets when she’s in pain but trying to convince herself it’s not that bad.

He grabs the side of the wall once they stumble inside, and waves her on ahead of him: the sooner she gets to the cockpit, the sooner they get off this fucking planet. She goes, pressing her hand fitfully against her belly again, and Kes takes a shaky, steading breath before dragging himself after her.

By the time he gets there, she’s in the pilot’s seat and the ship’s lifting off. He collapses into the co-pilot’s, and she tosses a medpen at him without looking away from the control panel. He catches it easily, plunges it into his left thigh. Barely feels the needle break skin, but the relief is immediate: the absence of pain sweeps through him so rapidly that it leaves him giddy, almost punch-drunk.

He looks over at his wife, who’s hunched over, slightly, and frowning.

“Shara Bey,” he says, hazily, and she throws him a soft, indulgent, but slightly quivering smile before focusing on the hyperdrive sequence. “How long’ve you been having contractions?"

“Half an hour, I’d guess,” she says, voice strained. “Bit hard to keep track out there, though."

He nods to himself, and his head lolls back against the seat. “Should we—“ the ship jolts around them as it jumps into hypserspace. Shara sags with something like relief, then winces. Kes blinks, focusing on her expression. There’s something strange there, and it takes too long, much too long for him to realize what it is: she’s afraid. He reaches for her, and she takes his hand.

“We there yet?” he says, going for playful, and she laughs, a little desperately.

“Almost,” she says. “Three hours, maybe."

 _Shit_ , he thinks. “Something closer? Somewhere with a medbay, one of the hospital ships, there’s gotta be something—"

She drops her gaze. “It’s too soon,” she says, softly.

“Shara Bey, three weeks isn’t...” he starts, and she just shakes her head, biting at her lower lip.

“Not for the baby." She waves a hand over herself, and around the cockpit. “For…me. For this."

He acts without thinking, dropping her hand, leveraging himself from the co-pilot’s seat, and collapsing into what he hopes is a comforting heap beside her.

“What’re you doing now, Sergeant Dameron?” she murmurs, reaching down to run a hand through his hair.

“The best I can, Lieutenant Bey,” he says, and pulls himself up; his left leg remains useless, but at least he’s not in pain anymore, and the walls of the ship are as good a crutch as any. He offers her a hand up out of the pilot’s seat: “C’mon, babe."

She gives him a wary look, but takes his hand. “Can still fly this thing, Kes,” she says, sharp, like he’s insulted her by implying otherwise.

“I know you can, Shara,” he says, wrapping an arm around her waist; of course she can, she’s piloted with a broken collar bone, and he can’t imagine that being _less_ intrusive or distracting than the current situation. “But we’re on course, yeah? So you don’t _need_ to."

She nods, slowly, and rubs at her stomach again. Lets herself be led to the solitary bunk on the ship, and gives a low grunt of effort as she lies down. He sits beside her, useless leg stretched out before him. Places a hand on her stomach.

“All good?” he says, quietly terrified of the answer; she seems to sense it, and smiles, pressing her hand on top of his.

“Quiet,” she says. “But good. Calm.”

He remembers that, that the baby's usually calmer in the sky than on the ground, probably because Shara always has been. He nods, and brings Shara’s hand up to his lips, presses a kiss to her knuckles. “Get some rest, Shara Bey."

*

She doesn’t, of course; over the next hour the time between contractions shortens and she begins to sweat, cursing under her breath when they come.

Kes drags himself around the cockpit in search of a medkit with a desperation bordering on mania. The contents of the one he finds are slim, and unsurprisingly unsuited to the situation, but at least there’s a cooling pack. He rips off its packaging and presses it to Shara’s forehead; she sighs with relief, and sags back against the thin mattress. Her eyes close after a moment.

“Stay with me, baby,” he says, desperation getting the better of him: it was his idea that she rest, and now he can’t seem to let her.

“Always, Kes,” she says, drowsy but sure. He nods, and leans down to kiss her, before hopping his way back to the co-pilot’s seat, where he continues scanning the comms for activity on all the medical channels he knows.

They’re over an hour from base before he gets a response, from one of the neutral hospital ships on its way to the outer rim. He gets their coordinates, and returns to Shara’s side. She startles back into alertness, but relaxes once she realizes it’s him.

“Hello, beautiful,” he says, and Shara laughs.

“Bet you say that to all your heavily pregnant wives."

He forces a grin. “Just the ones I like,” he says, and offers her the spare comm.

“What are you—"

“Found us a hospital ship on the way. I’m gonna need you to talk me through making the jump back into realspace,” he says, and she narrows her eyes, obviously about to insist that she can do it herself. But then she frowns, shaking her head, and takes the comm.

“Fine,” she says, tightly, and then smiles a grim, tired smile. “So much for no passenger-bay piloting."

“Well, you’re bound to be better at it than me."

“Damn right."

*

He’s no Shara Bey, but he can manage a landing, or so he hopes. The tractor beam of the _Sudden Restoration_ certainly helps steady his approach, and once inside the hanger he goes through the basic steps, as detailed to him by Shara, as smoothly as can be expected.

The medics that flood the ship once they land are spotlessly clean and almost identical to his tired eyes: he’s not sure whether to be comforted by this or not. Rigid homogeneity and white uniforms do not have the best associations, in his mind. They push him aside as he struggles to explain the situation, but they’re gentle with Shara, taking her pulse and asking her a series of questions that he strains to hear, from his new vantage point of leaning against the pilot’s seat.

One of the medics, a tall, dark-hair woman, peels off from their little band and approaches him.

“Sergeant Dameron?”

Kes nods, not taking his eyes off of Shara.

“Are you injured?”

He shakes his head; they’re starting to ease Shara onto a stretcher, and he has to make sure to follow wherever they take her.

“Because you seem to be bleeding,” says the medic, carefully, and Kes hazards a glance to her. “Quite a bit."

He looks down at his torso. Under the bright lights streaming through the open shuttle door, it becomes immediately obvious that yes, that does seem to be the case. He’s about to acknowledge it when the stretcher makes a low, whooshing sound—they’re about to take her away, and he has to—he has to go with her, has to follow, has to _make sure_ everything is—

He lurches forward and immediately regrets it: his numb but still fundamentally useless leg crumples under his weight and nearly sends him to the floor. He’s caught, luckily, by steady arm around his waist, but that does nothing for his focus, which is blurring dangerously.

“Thanks, Doc,” he hears himself say, and is promptly down for the count.

*

He wakes up to a soft bed and bright lights.

Half-expects to be restrained, for some reason, but he’s not: he’s free to jolt up, feeling the itch of still-healing skin at his side, the oddly stiff feeling of his left leg. Looks to his right, and finds Shara, barely a foot away, sitting up in a bed of her own.

She's smiling at him, and in her arms is—in her arms—his mind shorts. He blinks. Swallows. Can’t stop _staring_ , can barely even breath.

“Is…is that—did I miss it?” he finally manages to croak around the lump in his throat.

“Well,” Shara says, smirking a little. “Technically you _were_ here, but—"

“Shit,” he manages, and chokes back a sob.

“Hey,” she says, softly. “Not in front of the kid, Sergeant.”

“Shara Bey—"

“Shhh,” she murmurs, winking at him. “He’s asleep."

“It’s a— he’s a—“

She laughs at him, gestures that he should lean closer. When he does, he finds the tidy little bundle pressed to his chest. He wraps his arms around it automatically.

“There you go,” says Shara, eyes shining. “Say hello."

“Hey there, buddy,” he whispers, looking down: the child in his arms is so unbelievably small, and impossibly beautiful. Dark, curly hair, light brown skin, and a tiny, round nose. His eyes are shut, but the lashes are long and delicate.

He’s the spitting image of Shara Bey, the lucky devil — Kes lifts his head to tell her that, but finds himself struck dumb by the expression on her face: affection and devotion and the steely determination she gets when she flies, but amplified beyond anything he’s ever seen.

“What are we—what are we calling him?"

Shara blinks. The intensity remains, even as she yawns and leans back into her pillows. “I don’t know yet. How about Kes, Jr.?"

Kes scoffs. “No,” he says, running his finger across the tiny, curled up hand. “Gonna live a life of his own, this kid. Needs a name that’s just his, not something he's gotta drag around and worry about being compared to."

Shara chuckles at that; he’s not sure why. “Poe,” she offers.

“Poe?” The tiny, delicate eyelashes flicker for a moment, and then his eyes open: they’re a light brown, almost green. “Poe Dameron Bey,” Kes says, thoughtfully, and the baby focuses up on his face, tiny hand wrapping tight around Kes’s finger.

“Yeah,” he hears Shara say, and glances over. She’s smiling at the two of them. “Yeah, I think that works."

*

**Author's Note:**

> Limmie is the _Star Wars_ soccer equivalent. There's a Galactic Cup and everything! So I assume Kes Dameron's ultimate dream for his son or daughter was that they grow up in a universe where the coolest thing to be is a Limmie Galaxy Champion who doesn't have to worry about fighting wars against space fascists. 
> 
> Which...well, better luck with the next generation, Kes!


End file.
